UNITED STATES
Joe Conley dies aged 85
Joe Conley, an actor best known as the small-town storekeeper on the TV series The Waltons, has died at age 85. The Los Angeles Times reported on Tuesday that according to his wife, Louise, Conley, Joe Conley died at a care facility in Southern California on Sunday. She says he had suffered from dementia. A native of Buffalo, New York, Conley had bit parts on 1960s series like Green Acres and The Beverly Hillbillies before he landed the role on CBS’ The Waltons in 1972 that would last nearly a decade. Conley played Ike Godsey, postmaster and owner of the Jefferson County general store frequented by the Walton family in Depression-era Virginia. He would appear in 172 episodes over nine seasons and in TV movie reunions that lasted into the 1990s.
RUSSIA
Dead Magnitsky convicted
News agencies say a court in Moscow has found dead lawyer Sergei Magnitsky guilty of tax evasion, concluding an unusual posthumous trial. The court on Thursday also found Magnitsky’s onetime client, the US-born British investor William Browder, guilty of evading about US$17 million in taxes. Magnitsky died in prison of untreated pancreatitis in 2009, months after alleging that organized criminals colluded with corrupt Interior Ministry officials to claim a US$230 million tax rebate through illegally obtained subsidiaries of Browder’s Hermitage Capital investment company. His death prompted widespread criticism from human rights activists, and the presidential human rights council found in 2011 that he had been beaten and deliberately denied medical treatment. A US law named for Magnitsky calls for sanctions on Russians identified as human rights violators.
VENEZUELA
Leave Facebook: minister
A government minister on Wednesday urged citizens to shut Facebook accounts to avoid being unwitting informants for the US’ CIA, referring to recent revelations about US surveillance programs. Edward Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor who is stuck in a Moscow airport while seeking to avoid capture by the US, last month leaked details about US intelligence agencies obtaining information from popular Web sites including Facebook. “Comrades: Cancel your Facebook accounts, you’ve been working for free as CIA informants. Review the Snowden case!” Prisons Minister Iris Varela wrote on her Twitter account. “Countries and people that have fallen victim to gringo spying should sue the United States to ensure fair compensation. We’re going to bankrupt the US economy!” Varela wrote.
SPAIN
Bull run injures one
One person has been hospitalized after several thousand people tested their speed and bravery by dashing with six fighting bulls through the streets of the northern city of Pamplona. Navarra Hospital head Javier Sesma said the person sustained neck injuries in a fall in the fifth run of the famed San Fermin festival. However, he said no one was gored along the 850m route to Pamplona’s bull ring yesterday. There were moments of tension when a bull became separated from the pack and looked as if he would charge some of the runners. He was eventually guided into the ring without incident. The nationally televised morning runs are the highlight of the nine-day street festival that became world famous after Ernest Hemingway’s 1926 novel The Sun Also Rises.
‘IN A DIFFERENT PLACE’: The envoy first visited Shanghai, where he attended a Chinese basketball playoff match, and is to meet top officials in Beijing tomorrow US Secretary of State Antony Blinken yesterday arrived in China on his second visit in a year as the US ramps up pressure on its rival over its support for Russia while also seeking to manage tensions with Beijing. The US diplomat tomorrow is to meet China’s top brass in Beijing, where he is also expected to plead for restraint as Taiwan inaugurates president-elect William Lai (賴清德), and to raise US concerns on Chinese trade practices. However, Blinken is also seeking to stabilize ties, with tensions between the world’s two largest economies easing since his previous visit in June last year. At the
Nearly half of China’s major cities are suffering “moderate to severe” levels of subsidence, putting millions of people at risk of flooding, especially as sea levels rise, according to a study of nationwide satellite data released yesterday. The authors of the paper, published by the journal Science, found that 45 percent of China’s urban land was sinking faster than 3mm per year, with 16 percent at more than 10mm per year, driven not only by declining water tables, but also the sheer weight of the built environment. With China’s urban population already in excess of 900 million people, “even a small portion
UNSETTLING IMAGES: The scene took place in front of TV crews covering the Trump trial, with a CNN anchor calling it an ‘emotional and unbelievably disturbing moment’ A man who doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire outside the courthouse where former US president Donald Trump is on trial has died, police said yesterday. The New York City Police Department (NYPD) said the man was declared dead by staff at an area hospital. The man was in Collect Pond Park at about 1:30pm on Friday when he took out pamphlets espousing conspiracy theories, tossed them around, then doused himself in an accelerant and set himself on fire, officials and witnesses said. A large number of police officers were nearby when it happened. Some officers and bystanders rushed
Beijing is continuing to commit genocide and crimes against humanity against Uyghurs and other Muslim minorities in its western Xinjiang province, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a report published on Monday, ahead of his planned visit to China this week. The State Department’s annual human rights report, which documents abuses recorded all over the world during the previous calendar year, repeated language from previous years on the treatment of Muslims in Xinjiang, but the publication raises the issue ahead of delicate talks, including on the war in Ukraine and global trade, between the top U.S. diplomat and Chinese